Learning Spanish during the holidays may be exciting. All you have to do is look for words in the category of holidays. You can also play a word association game of words that make you think of other words. For example, "holiday" may make you think of "bells."
You can keep going. Holidays are a fantastic category.
If you want, you can get a Spanish language newspaper and find words of the holiday season in it. If holidays are not your thing, you can also choose other categories such as "home," "garden," "books," or "jobs."
Finding new words is a stimulating activity. There is no dearth there.
Find amazing words in all your categories you love. Keep going! Don't stop!
By the new year, you will have an exhaustive list of words that you will want to keep on using.
Feliz Navidad y Prospero Ano Nuevo!

Take a dictionary and collect words you don't know. Don't look at the meaning of
the words yet. Try to guess what the words mean. Then look up the meaning. See how hot or cold you were.
You can also get someone to give you words. Guess the meaning and ask them if you are right or wrong. This guessing game will give you a chance to get close to the words.
You are interacting using the words and spending time with them. You are also interacting using Spanish.
New immigrants use Spanish. What better way for them to assimilate than having people practice Spanish with them. You can also play guessing games using English with
new immigrants. They can spend time with English words.
It is helpful to be bilingual in a world teeming with immigrants. People feel at home when using their native language, and new immigrants will like all the helpful interaction.
Happy guessing! :)

Today, I am going to write about increasing Spanish vocabulary. Learning a word a day is the aim. All you need is an English to Spanish dictionary.
Learn a word a day for each letter of the alphabet. For example, you can choose the
word, "acera" for the letter "a" for day number one. The next day, day two, choose a word in Spanish for the letter "b" and so on.
Since there are twenty - six letters, you will have twenty - six words by the end. The remaining days of the month, either four or five days, depending on the month, will also give you a chance to review the words. You can review the words or write sentences with them. Each month, you can learn twenty - six words. Keep a list of the 26 words.
If you don't feel like learning twenty - six words, or choosing words based on the alphabet, you can choose the amount you like from the dictionary. For example, you may want to learn ten words instead of twenty - six. You can select a variety of words.
It is up to you. If you develop your vocabulary, you will be more confident using
Spanish. So don't wait. Get your dictionary and give it a go.

An amazing activity to learn Spanish would be gathering articles in Spanish from newspapers and translating them to English. You can start with one article if you wish.
Clip it out and paste it in a notebook. Copy the writing in Spanish first. Then translate the article next to the clipping or under it, depending on where there is room.
You can use a dictionary, but I recommend trying to translate the article without it first to see how much you can translate by yourself. After that, use a dictionary if you need to, and then compare how you did the translation with and without the dictionary.
There are free newspapers you can get from boxes in front of stores or restaurants.
One such paper is called "Hoy."
Copying the article will help you to see how Spanish flows on paper. You will also be able to understand writing techniques by noting how the sentences are structured. Choose articles that have topics that are interesting or choose them randomly.
A final activity you can do with this assignment is to read the article. See how you do. Are there any words or a word that you stumble on or does the writing flow on your tongue? You are also learning new words as you practice reading, writing, and speaking the words in the article.
Reading. Writing. Speaking. You can't go wrong.
Enjoy this activity and enjoy learning Spanish.

I wonder if the word "Spanish phobia" has been coined yet.
That can explain why people are shy about using their Spanish. It may also mean that
people may be shy to meet Spanish peoples.
I think that may explain why I don't see people practicing their Spanish or even content in Spanish on the web. Why is it so scarce?
I think that I am afraid to write in Spanish, but I am not afraid to speak it. I am not afraid to make mistakes verbally. Writing, though, is difficult, because the mistakes are all in print and there for the whole world to see.
I want to also ask native speakers why they are shy about using Spanish. Do they believe people won't accept them if they hear them speaking a foreign language? Is it their accent they don't want to share?
There's got to be some clues out there that prove my theory about Spanish phobia. Even native speakers don't initiate by speaking their language.
One can't deny that a sizable portion of the population speaks the language, so why be shy and hide the fact that you speak it?
Speaking Spanish would also be an amazing hobby. People would bond together and find a useful hobby to connect.
?Todavia temes?
I hope not. If one makes mistakes, one can also correct them in the process. That much is cut and dried.
Speak up in Spanish. Don't be shy anymore.

I think that people that took Spanish in school don't get a chance to practice it. There probably aren't enough people with which to practice. English is the constant medium of exchange in the state and elsewhere.
It would be great if a club existed for people to pursue Spanish as a hobby, or if people you met were game to practice it with you. I know a group that started out and went out to restaurants to try Spanish food and conversation.
Spanish takes two to practice. If you go solo, like me, you have to learn it at your own pace or whenever you have time. You have to stare at the words, pronounce them, or write about it in a blog like I am doing now.
Spanish solitaire is tough, but it can be fun and a constructive thing to do. There won't be any exchange, but you can rate your errors.
I think I am stuck, because practicing tenses is difficult. You need other people to correct you in conversation or writing. I can also beef up in the tenses and correct myself, too, I gather, but that will take time.
When I find Spanish people, they are usually shy, and when they find out I know Spanish, they act even shyer. I feel like telling them that people take Spanish in school, because most schools demand you take a foreign language, and a lot of people choose Spanish, because it is used more, and spoken more because there is a majority of the population.
So exchange will have to wait, until someone tells them that there are non - native Spanish speakers around that want to practice Spanish.
I think the shyness is contagious.
At any rate, Americans should practice or learn Spanish, because there is that majority
that speaks it, and there needs to be an exchange to develop brotherhood, sisterhood, and harmony.

I wonder what it's like to write poetry in Spanish. I bet the words would sound beautiful and flow just like daily life. I would like to look for blogs on Spanish poetry. The inspiration is in my brain. I am thinking of words such as "vida" or cotidiana. Those are also in a song I once heard called "El y Ella." Spanish songs have words that sound like poetry.
Here goes:
Vida
Diariamente
Cosas del Verdad
pequenos pero con mucho amor
una verdad
que busca a ti
I am thinking of a poem that goes something like that.
I guess I would get practice in Spanish writing Spanish poetry.
It forces one to be creative and understand the meanings of the words.
I'll look at it as a creative way to learn Spanish.
Verano
Helados
Ninos y ninas corren
a volar
I guess I won't get writer's block if I try to think of images for poetry.
Daily life is full of poetry if you look for it.
Enjoy the Spanish that you learn daily.
Don't give up.

I just found two twitter pages in Spanish. That is exciting to me. I still will look for blogs in Spanish as well, but at least I can look through reading material now.
There are periodicos and news sites like "El Pais." The thing is that I want to read ordinary things, too, not just news and politics.
One twitter page defines a word in Spanish per day. That is kind of interesting.
Although I an not perfect yet in Spanish, I like the idea of starting off where I left off, so I can identify my weak areas. Right now, it seems I have many.
Dos paginas de twitter, muy bien! Si?
If you agree, buscalo. Try reading the phrases and words in Spanish twitter pages.
It's not like reading a paragraph or an essay, but it's a start.
Exposure to Spanish is key to keeping the language up.
Hasta luego.
Solo Spanish or Spanish Solitaire
P.S. Don't forget to make flashcards in Spanish. You can choose a word starting with each letter in the alphabet. For example, acera which means "sidewalk." That's 26 words each time.

I don't know anyone that speaks Spanish currently. Practicing it alone is my only option.
There are plenty of sites that suggest that one can learn Spanish online, but I want to go it alone for a number of reasons. I like the process of learning alone or solo. That's why I started Spanish Spire and Solo Spanish on blogger a few years ago. I wanted to detail what it is like for someone to learn Spanish when there is little to no exposure to it.
I am forgetting Spanish. I worry that this will happen to other Spanish speakers or learners. I think that all that work will be in vain, because no one gets a chance to learn or that they don't practice it. I think that if you don't use a language, you can lose it. That's how I feel right now.
I once found a site called "Blog y web" online about tech and tech gadgets. The writer joined twitter, I think, so there is twitter in Spanish. I wonder if people on blogger and blogdrive write in Spanish. I can always practice Spanish on their pages.
Well, it's frustrating when you feel like you've come to the end of the road.
Something's going to turn up soon, though. Since I want to be a diligent learner and teach others through this process, something just has to. I'll have to stop complaining that there's no one there to practice it with, because excuses get a person nowhere.
Okay, hasta luego. I hope you enjoy reading Spanish as much as I do. Try to find some sites in Spanish. I'll let you know if I find any as well.
J.A.